So, if your spouse visited you at work to tell you that s/he had AIDS, or your kid had cancer, or your mom had Alzheimer’s, and your employer used a hidden mic in the parking lot to listen in on you, you’d be OK with that?

We’re talking about employers who require 55+ hours a week from their employees, who expect employees to be on call all the time, and to do mandatory overtime, spying on their banking, on their private email, and on their use of health and other TLS-protected services. In secret.

as many have said (sheryl sandberg being the most recent) “there is no work-life balance, there is only balance”. the “don’t use employer resources for facebook” argument might imply the converse – if i land a deal because of a facebook connection, should my employer be denied benefit from it? the balance is not between work assets and home assets – those are the lowest value assets here. the balance is among items of high and rreperable value – {privacy, trust and security} as a cross-product with {employer, family, friends, general public} such that i can use appropriate time and materials (physical or intellectual) for each of the roles i may assume during the day – employee, manager, parent, child, supplier, customer, volunteer, friend, and way too commonly, wrangler of bureaucracy.